Costs Law Forum
This comprehensive costs program will provide an in-depth guide on how to draft effective costs agreements that will keep clients satisfied and practices running smoothly. You’ll gain information, strategies and best practices needed to effectively communicate with clients while deftly navigating client complaints. Work through the best tactics to recover costs from clients or other parties. Consider strategies to avoid ethical traps and earn your core CPD points in this unique & focused seminar. WEB2111N15
Description
Attend and earn 4 CPD units including:
1 unit in Ethics & Professional Responsibility
1 unit in Practice Management & Business Skills
2 units in Professional Skills
This program is applicable to practitioners from all States & Territories
Chair: Kerrie Rosati, Principal, DGT Costs Lawyers; QLD Court Appointed Costs Assessor; Member, Costs Assessors’ Users Group, Supreme Court of New South Wales; Member, Costs Committee & Ethics Committee, Law Society of New South Wales
Professional Skills
9.00am to 10.00am A Guide to Drafting Costs Agreements
- What should be in your costs agreement? Understanding the requirements
- Preparing a fee estimate: How do you effectively scope your work?
- Conditional costs agreements: What needs to go in them?
- Professional conduct issues involving costs agreements
Presented by Cate Dealehr, Principal, Australian Legal Costing Group; Accredited Specialist in Costs Law
Practice Management & Business Skills
10.00am to 11.00am Communicating with Clients about Costs
Solicitors need to accept that talking about costs with clients is not vulgar – raising the topic with clients is actually a crucial skill that will help avoid costs disputes. Explore how to raise the issue and what to say including:
- How to introduce the topic of costs with a client
- Managing a client who expects frequent contact or has other demands with cost implications
- Explaining the role of the involvement, supervision and costs of junior solicitors
- Managing client expectations about costs:
- When fixed fees are an option
- What to say when they aren’t
- Never be a post box and why
- What to do when things change and you need to revise costs:
- Explaining this to the client
- Is your agreement robust and clear?
- When do you need to revise your agreement?
Presented by Justine Woods, Partner, Cooper Grace Ward Lawyers; Best Lawyers 2022, Family Law & Family Law Mediation; Recommended Family & Divorce Lawyer and Parenting & Children’s Matters Lawyer, Doyle’s Guide 2021
11.00am to 11.10am Break
Professional Skills
11.10am to 12.10pm Recovering Costs: From Clients and from Other Parties
- Top 10 tips in costs recovery
- Reducing the solicitor/client vs party/party gap
- Alternatives to costs assessment
Presented by Mike Dudman, Director, Costs Lawyer, Blackstone Legal Costing; Accredited Specialist in Costs Law
Ethics & Professional Responsibility
12.10pm to 1.10pm Ethical Billing and Effectively Dealing with Client Complaints
- Obligations regarding costs and cost disclosures
- Ethical billing: examples of bad practice
- Clear and transparent billing
- Ethical considerations when a client complains about costs
- What are your options for resolution?
Presented by Suzanne Ward, Special Counsel, Pattison Hardman
Presenters
Kerrie Rosati
Kerrie Rosati, principal of DGT Costs Lawyers, works from both the Sydney and the Brisbane offices. Kerrie is a Court Appointed Costs Assessor in Queensland. She has acted in and advised on legal costs issues in many high profile and complex cases in New South Wales, Queensland and all Federal jurisdictions. Kerrie also lectures regularly to the legal profession (nationally and internationally) on legal costing issues for the Law Societies of New South Wales, Australian Capital Territory, Northern Territory and Tasmania, the State Legal Conference, College of Law and other commercial seminar providers. Kerrie is a current member of the Costs Assessors’ Users Group of the Supreme Court of New South Wales and the Costs Committee and Ethics Committee of the Law Society of New South Wales.
Cate Dealehr
Cate founded ALCG in 1990 and is a recognised leader in her field. She was the chair of the Costs Section executive committee of the Law Institute of Victoria (LIV) from 2018 to 2021 and long-standing trainer for law graduates and lawyers. She is a regular presenter at the annual National Costs Conference. Cate is a recipient of the annual LIV Pro Bono awards and received a LIV Certificate of Service for her outstanding service to the Victorian legal profession. She served for 4 years as an elected representative for Victoria’s solicitors on the Legal Services Board and drafted the precedent costs disclosure and agreements for distribution for the Victorian legal profession. Cate has acted as an independent costs expert in over 23 class actions through-out Australia including acting as a Court appointed Costs Referee in the Federal and Victorian and NSW Supreme Courts.
Justine Woods
Justine Woods is a partner at Cooper Grace Ward and leads the family law team. She has been an accredited family law specialist for nearly two decades. Having practised exclusively in family law for more than twenty years, Justine has extensive experience in all aspects of family law – children’s arrangements and parenting matters (including surrogacy), property settlement and spousal maintenance issues for both married and de facto couples, binding financial agreements and their international counterparts, together with child support and child maintenance trusts. An accredited specialist for more than a decade, Justine regularly presents at industry and professional education seminars for a range of bodies.
Mike Dudman
Mike Dudman leads the Sydney, Brisbane and Gold Coast practices of Blackstone Legal Costing and brings a client-centred and results-oriented approach to the legal costs arena. The only specialist outside Victoria accredited in costs law, an accreditation only provided in Australia by the Law Institute of Victoria, Mike’s extensive commercial experience is complemented by a broad education that includes business, psychology and the law. Starting his career as a costs lawyer in 1999, Mike has worked on several thousand matters and has appeared in Court as a recognised expert in this increasingly complex area of the law.
Suzanne Ward
Suzanne is a leading Australian Legal Costs Consultant and distinguished lawyer with over 20 years’ experience. During this time, Suzanne has refined her skills in resolving costing disputes in all forms of litigation for both national and international legal firms. Suzanne has been accepted and judicially quoted as an expert witness in the Supreme Court of New South Wales and Federal Court of Australia in multiple judgments.